In September 2017, just two months before Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey formed a task force to investigate widespread allegations of sex abuse in the entertainment industry, her office was beginning to wrestle with its own #MeToo moment.

With trepidation, a deputy district attorney submitted a confidential memorandum to an internal affairs investigator that would alter the career trajectory of Edward Miller, a star prosecutor with the Public Integrity Unit.

It also put Lacey squarely in the cross hairs of controversy.

Miller, a 59-year-old veteran deputy district attorney best known for helping to convict seven municipal officials in the notorious 2010 Bell corruption scandal, was accused of aggressively pursuing his female colleague for more than 2 1/2 years.

Professional and a hard charger in the courtroom, the married lawyer was branded as “creepy” and a “predator” by some fellow prosecutors.

The deputy D.A. who was the object of his affection repeatedly rebuffed Miller’s advances, sending him numerous emails and texts telling him to leave her alone, according to internal district attorney’s documents obtained by the Southern California News Group. She declined to report him, however, fearing it would jeopardize an upcoming promotion.

But she did confide in a co-worker, who blew the whistle on Miller even though she had been implored not to tell anyone.

“I am personally offended by the actions of Assistant Head Deputy Ed Miller,” the co-worker said in the Sept. 14, 2017, memo to Sgt. Jay Chapman, the internal affairs investigator. “It disgusts me that someone in management in this office is doing the things that she says he has been doing to her. It goes to the integrity of our office and makes a mockery of what we do as the largest local prosecutorial agency in this country.”

Miller, who worked in the health care fraud unit, was suspended soon after the complaint was filed and remained on leave for more than 17 months. He was then demoted and, earlier this year, transferred to the El Monte branch of the District Attorney’s Office, where he works alongside rookie prosecutors.

The Los Angeles County Claims Board has recommended a $300,000 settlement with Miller’s alleged victim. The Board of Supervisors recently postponed a decision on the recommendation until Sept. 3.

Miller, meanwhile, has appealed his demotion from a grade 4 to a grade 3 deputy to the Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission.

In a January letter to the commission, Miller said he was “subjected to disparate treatment” in that employees “similarly situated” were not subjected to the same discipline.

Miller did not return phone calls and emails seeking comment, and the District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on his case.

A troubling picture

Miller certainly wasn’t the first employee of the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office to be accused of sexual harassment. The office is the largest local prosecutorial agency in the nation, employing more than 2,000 workers. It has nearly 1,000 attorneys, with more than half of them women.

Since 2014, 19 male and eight female employees have been accused of sexual harassment. Of those, complaints against 10 male and six female employees were substantiated.

However, a Southern California News Group review of emails, memos, lawsuits and confidential reports, as well as interviews with prosecutors, paints a troubling picture about how the District Attorney’s Office treats sexual harassment victims and whistleblowers.

Several deputy district attorneys, who asked not to be identified to avoid retribution, claimed whistleblowers who file complaints often are denied promotions, banished to far-flung offices in what is known as “freeway therapy,” stripped of important cases or relegated to mundane, demoralizing duties.

The review revealed that while prosecutors can be fearless in the courtroom, many often are reluctant to report harassment for fear of retaliation. “You get screwed, which is why people don’t go out on a limb,” one prosecutor said.

Lacey, in a January 2018 email to staff, outlined her commitment to fostering a safe and professional work environment with the formation of an employee relations division. Headed by Julie Dixon-Silva, previously an attorney with the Los Angeles County Counsel’s Office, the division has four investigators.

“I want my employees to be reassured that no one in the District Attorney’s Office has been or will be punished for reporting improper workplace conduct,” said Lacey, the first woman and first African American district attorney in Los Angeles County. “We are committed to conducting thorough administrative investigations into each of these reported incidents and will take the appropriate action to ensure that we maintain a safe and professional work environment at all times.”

‘Stop protecting’ harassers

Six months after that email, however, a prosecutor wrote an email to Lacey outlining the mistreatment of sexual harassment victims and whistleblowers in the office. The July 2018 email, obtained by SCNG, was titled “Please Stop Protecting the Harvey Weinsteins of Our Office,” referring to the Hollywood mogul being investigated by the District Attorney’s Office on multiple counts of sexual assault.

“These women trusted the process but suffered grave consequences after reporting instances of sexual harassment,” the email says. “I’ve seen, first hand, the heavy-handed nature by which these women have been treated by a system that claims to help them when they come forward. I’ve seen women who made complaints that were never addressed.

“I’ve seen women who have asked questions of investigators and not received a response. I’ve seen women get transferred after reporting sexual harassment. I’ve seen women who have been left hanging after reporting claims. I’ve seen women who have reported claims who have been notified that they are all of a sudden under investigation.”

District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Jean Guccione denied the existence of “freeway therapy” and other allegations outlined in the email.

“The District Attorney’s Office does not protect employees who have substantiated claims of sexual harassment made against them,” she said.

Career suicide?

The attorney who complained about Miller, however, said reporting sexual harassment can be career suicide.

“It is a big step to report sexual harassment, especially in this office, where coming forward is looked down upon and you could ruin your career here if you don’t play the political game,” she wrote in the memo to internal affairs investigator Chapman.

In an interview with the Southern California News Group, she cited her own treatment.

After reporting Miller, she was transferred from a white-collar crime unit at the Hall of Justice to a less prestigious office miles away where she files cases but doesn’t handle any trials.

“If I don’t get trials, I won’t get promoted,” she said. “To be pulled out a special unit and to be just filing cases … it’s embarrassing. People know I pissed a manager off. I feel ostracized. I don’t regret what I have done, but I feel very lonely.”

13-page letter details allegations

Miller’s conduct was detailed in a 13-page letter sent to him in December 2018 by former Chief Deputy District Attorney John K. Spillane. Miller was told he had repeatedly engaged in long-term inappropriate, uninvited and unwanted conduct with his colleague.

“It is expected that employees of the District Attorney’s office will act with integrity and professionalism at all times,” said Spillane, who has since retired. “You have failed to do so. Your conduct is even more troubling given your position as a supervisor. You were entrusted with the responsibility to discourage and report the type of conduct that you engaged in.”

Spillane noted that Miller began harassing his colleague in December 2014 when he invited her to lunch under the false pretense that a group of people also would be attending.

“You drove … (her) to lunch at a restaurant in Pasadena,” Spillane’s letter says. “You offered her numerous compliments and then questioned why she was not returning the compliments. In your car on the return to the office, you gave (her) a gift of See’s Candy and stated, ‘Don’t worry, it’s not jewelry or something from Victoria Secret.’ “

After Miller parked his car and while walking back to the Hall of Justice, he kissed his colleague’s hand.

Miller told the district attorney’s investigators he didn’t invite his fellow deputy district attorney to lunch “out of the blue,” adding she had previously exhibited flirtatious and suggestive behavior.

“As an example, you recalled a conversation in your office where … (she) commented she worked well under pressure,” Spillane’s letter said. “You explained during your interview with the Employee Relations Division that you interpreted this comment to mean, ‘A woman being under a man during sexual intercourse.’ Like that would be pressure.”

The colleague, Spillane noted, declined two subsequent lunch invitations and, in April 2015, told Miller he made her feel uncomfortable.

“When speaking to (her) … you told her she that could file a sexual harassment lawsuit against you, but no one would believe her because you are a saint,” Spillane’s letter said. “She states that when she asked if your comment was a threat, you left her office.”

The fellow deputy D.A. sent Miller emails in February and March 2016 demanding that he leave her alone. And she did whatever she could to avoid him, the letter says. She kept her office door closed, worked in other offices, and would text her secretary to find out when Miller was gone so she could return to her regular office.

Restraining order sought

When Miller was suspended from his job, he apparently was allowed to keep his badge, identification card and access pass to the Hall of Justice. That prompted the whistleblower, a sexual harassment victim herself, to seek an in-house restraining order to prevent his return to the D.A.’s Office.

“I do not feel safe in this office and in my workplace,” she wrote Lacey in January 2018. “Also, I don’t feel that this office is expending any effort to ensure my safety and the safety of others related to this investigation. Rather, and quite sadly, I do see that this office is expending energy in protecting its own interest by limiting legal liability in this matter.”

Her request for a restraining order was denied, as was a second request a month later.

Guccione, the district attorney’s spokeswoman, said any credible threat against an employee is reviewed by law enforcement and referred to county counsel. “If county counsel determines that a credible threat exists and the employee is cooperative, then the county counsel will seek a restraining order for that employee,” she said.

Payouts to other prosecutors

Though Miller was allowed to remain on the job after his demotion, some other prosecutors in the District Attorney’s Office accused of sexual harassment have quietly retired and their alleged victims have settled claims with the county.

The county agreed in September 2017 to pay $350,000 each to Deputy District Attorneys Beth Silverman and Tannaz Mokayef, assigned to the elite major crimes division, to settle a lawsuit accusing their supervisor, Gary Hearnsberger, of unwanted touching, offensive comments and sexually suggestive gestures.

Hearnsberger retired about a week before the settlement was reached. He could not be reached for comment.

In September 2016, Thomas Higgins, a head deputy district attorney, retired after 47 years amid allegations he called another prosecutor in his office a “sarcastic bitch,” routinely took cases away from attorneys who rebuffed his advances and advised female staff members to dress “sexy,” according to three veteran prosecutors.

Higgins, 78, who lives in La Verne, called the allegations “crap.”

“It was a misunderstanding,” he said in a phone interview. “I referred to the woman as a sarcastic witch in a bantering conversation. None of the three women (who heard the conversation) complained.”

As for the other allegations, Higgins dismissed them as idle gossip, denying he made sexual advances toward women working for him, retaliated against those who spurned him or asked female staffers to dress provocatively.

Higgins said he was transferred to another office. “So I just said screw it. I retired after 47 years (in the District Attorney’s Office) and after seven years as cop. That’s a long time to work in the criminal justice system.”

Lacey supporters targeted

Another prosecutor in the District Attorney’s Office has emailed Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and U.S. Reps. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena, Adam B. Schiff, D-Burbank, and Ted Lieu, D-Manhattan Beach, asking them to withdraw their endorsements of Lacey, who is seeking reelection to a third term in 2020. Similar letters were sent to the female-majority Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

“As a woman, I’ve seen firsthand how unprofessional and demoralizing complaints made by women have been handled,” the prosecutor wrote. “I have seen how (the accused) have been allowed to retaliate and intimidate the accusers. I have seen whistleblowers punished for reporting conduct.”

Blacklisting difficult to prove

Stephen M. Kohn, a Washington, D.C., lawyer and chairman of the National Whistleblower Center, said public sector employers often can retaliate with virtual impunity because it is difficult for whistleblowers to prove that certain forms of retaliation — such as lateral transfers, changes in work assignments and missed promotions — are a result of blacklisting.

“Most employers retaliate and don’t take corrective action against sexual harassers,” Kohn said. “As a general rule of thumb, they try to shoot the messenger.”

Public sector employers also are known to engage in lengthy court battles to defend against sexual harassment cases to send a message to other victims that they will dragged through the mud if they file a complaint, said Wendy Musell, an Emeryville attorney who is president of the California Employment Lawyers Association.

“If they see they might be dragged through years of litigation,” she said, “they may not come forward.”

Scott Schwebke is an investigative reporter for the Register and the Southern California News Group. A native of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., he was previously a breaking news and multimedia reporter for the Ogden, Utah, Standard-Examiner. Scott has also worked at newspapers in Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia. A graduate of Brigham Young University, Scott is the Register's 2014 Beat Reporter of the Year. He has won more than two dozen journalism awards including the N.C. Associated Press News Council’s O. Henry Award for a lengthy narrative on the brutal home invasion slaying of a nurse and a Katie Award from the Dallas Press Club for a feature story on a UFO investigator. Scott has covered everything from methamphetamine trafficking cops to hurricanes and has accompanied police on undercover drug buys. He also provided an award winning, eyewitness account of the execution of a North Carolina death row inmate and obtained an exclusive interview with the ringleader of a brazen escape from the Orange County Jail involving three maximum security inmates. Scott was also part of the Register’s investigative team that produced the year-long, award winning Rehab Riviera series, examining problems in Southern California’s drug rehabilitation industry. Having spent two years living in England including Liverpool, he is an avid Beatles fan and memorabilia collector. He and his wife, Lisa, reside in Anaheim.

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